Losing an ennemy

Trita Parsi has written a great book about what remains the most outstanding diplomatic feat of the 21st century. It is the first work to describe in detail the whole course of the extraordinarily complex international negotiation that led to the conclusion in Vienna on July 14, 2015 of the now famous Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA—the arrangement between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, UK, US), plus Germany to cap Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Even though we know the (provisional) end of the story, the book reads like a thriller, so high the tensions that built up as obstacles to an agreement repeatedly arose. This is certainly the case, among other examples, with the secret U.S.-Iranian diplomatic contacts that took place in Oman, the hectic final run of the negotiations in Vienna, and the epic battle in and around the US Congress immediately afterwards to protect the accord from its many and fierce critics.

The latest of what so far has been a trilogy of books written on the twists and turns of recent US-Iranian diplomacy, Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy (Yale University Press) opens with a useful recap of the major findings in Parsi’s award-winning Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States (2010) and A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran (2012).

The first four chapters of Losing an Enemy effectively set the scene for the drama of the successful negotiation to follow. Two introductory observations provide the key drivers of the whole storyline. The first one reads: “It would be erroneous to view these negotiations and the deal they produced solely as a nuclear matter. In essence, they formed the final chapter of a thirty-five-year battle over the geopolitical order in the region in general and Iran’s place in that order in particular.” And the second: “While the deal was based on a ground-breaking scientific formula, the real challenge to the negotiations was not technical but human.” These two sentences reverberate throughout the book.

The curtain rises on the first international conflict after the end of the Cold War: the 1991 Gulf War. Parsi rightly presents it as a seminal event in the new distribution of power in the Middle East. I remember personally how, with the disappearance of the Eastern bloc, the United States and its main allies looked around for new threats capable of legitimizing the maintenance of a global military posture. Neither China nor India was sufficiently powerful to pose a credible threat. Instead, it had to come from the vaguely ominous Islamic world, and more precisely the turbulent Middle East. In Parsi’s view, Israel played a critical role in focusing Western, and especially Washington’s, attention on that region.

For its part, Israel had lost its favorite bogeyman with the defeat of Saddam Hussein, the regional leader who wanted to offer the nuclear bomb to the Arab world. At that point, Israel’s neighbors no longer posed a credible threat, as indicated by their participation in the post-war Madrid Conference under the joint presidency of the United States and a somewhat absent-minded Soviet Union (which was to disappear altogether a few weeks later). There was “a feeling in Israel that, because of the end of the Cold War, relations with the U.S. were cooling, and we needed some new glue for the alliance,” Parsi quotes one eminent Israeli scholar as telling him in one of dozens of interviews cited in the book. “The new glue was radical Islam, and Iran was radical Islam.”

Despite its helpful neutrality in the 1991 war, Iran was not invited to Madrid, a snub that constituted the first lost opportunity to draw Tehran out of its isolation and encourage it to adopt a more cooperative attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the same time, the Israeli leadership started developing an increasingly aggressive narrative depicting Iran as an “existential threat” to the Jewish state, and indeed, to the whole civilized world. As a result, according to Parsi, hardliners in Tehran opposed to the more open policies of then-President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani gained strength, and, less than two years later, Iran forcefully rejected the Oslo agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The “dual-containment” policy adopted by the Clinton administration, which paired Iran with Saddam Hussein as a threat to U.S. national interests, marked the beginning of a long line of US efforts to make Iran a pariah state: politically, of course, and, more practically, through the application of comprehensive economic sanctions. Parsi digs up from the archives some emblematic declarations of the period that would become mantras under Trump more than 20 years later. There’s this nugget, for example, from Clinton’s first secretary of state, Warren Christopher: “Iran is the world’s most significant sponsor of terrorism and the most ardent opponent of the Middle East peace process…The evidence is overwhelming: Iran is intent on projecting terror and extremism across the Middle East and beyond.” Sound familiar?

September 11 and After

Then came September 11. The author describes at length Iran’s highly effective policy of active collaboration with the United States and the international coalition in their drive to break the Taliban’s hold on Afghanistan. All of this, however, was to no avail as Iran found itself included in George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” in his January 2002 State of Union address. With the fall of Baghdad 14 months later came talk by senior Bush officials and other Washington hardliners of “real men” wanting to go to Tehran.

In the meantime, the world discovered the budding Iranian uranium enrichment program. Three European nations, having kept their embassies in Tehran, started speaking with officials there in an attempt to negotiate a compromise guaranteeing that such a program would not end up producing nuclear weapons. In this context, a senior European official confides to Parsi that “the need for EU involvement in the nuclear issue was not so much to contain Iran, but to contain America.” Iran was spared a possible invasion, but Europe’s engagement was fated to die a slow death as Washington insisted that Iran completely abandon its enrichment project, the so-called “zero-centrifuge” or “zero-enrichment” position that would stall progress on negotiations well into the next administration.

Barack Obama chose to explicitly renounce the long-standing US policy of “regime change” regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran and engage in a negotiated solution to the nuclear crisis. But these moves in themselves were insufficient to change the course of events, according to Parsi who devotes four (of 17) chapters to describing the highly intricate games deployed by and between a broad array of actors, almost all of them holding divergent visions and interests and trying to divert Obama from his goal.

From this gallery of portraits emerges the figure of Benjamin Netanyahu, ever resourceful when it comes to raising obstacles to possible US engagement with Iran. At the same time in Tehran itself, the increasingly rancorous conflicts between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad consistently worked against any opportunity for progress. Slowly, according to Parsi, “the political maneuverability Obama enjoyed on Iran when he first took office was completely eaten away by pressure from Israel and Congress, the fallout from the June 2009 Iranian presidential election, and Iran’s refusal to accept the Russian-American swap proposal in October 2009.” Meanwhile, the US administration’s “dual-track policy,” which combined diplomatic openings with new sanctions, proved fruitless when confronted with the steadfastness of Tehran’s negotiators and their sense that their nation was no less “exceptional” than any others, least of all the United States. The carrot-and-stick approach had its limits, particularly with a country with Iran’s history.

Finally, an Opening

Nonetheless, between the various pressures and mutual bickering that characterized the period from 2010 to 2012, Parsi highlights a range of factors that began creating opportunities for new thinking and initiatives. First, there was the gradual awareness that sanctions, however crippling for the Iranian economy and painful for Iranian society, were not impeding the advance of the nuclear program. The time was quickly approaching when Iran would have the capacity to produce enough highly enriched uranium to build one or two atomic bombs in only a few months. Second, repeated Israeli declarations, in private and public, that Iran was reaching “a point of no return” that required drastic and possibly unilateral action were not well received in Washington, to say the least. “After years of unfulfilled threats,” Parsi writes, “the White House was terrified that Netanyahu finally was about to go through with his threat to bomb Iran and pull an October surprise on Obama—right before the US presidential elections.”

Third, Obama’s election to a second term offered him renewed political space that could be translated into greater flexibility at the negotiating table. Fourth, the departure of Hillary Clinton, who definitely had little or no empathy for the Iranian file, opened the door to her replacement by Sen. John Kerry, a man whose political experience, sensitivity to the fundamental questions of war and peace, genuine warmth of personality, and personal affinities with the Middle East made him almost uniquely fit for the task at hand. Finally, the direct involvement of perhaps the most highly respected leader of the Persian Gulf and beyond, Oman’s Sultan Qaboos, provided Washington with a channel of unimpaired access to the highest levels of the Iranian government and indeed to the Supreme leader himself.

Thanks to Parsi’s thorough investigation, we have the first detailed insight into the secret meetings organized in Oman between the US and Iranian negotiators, as seen through the eyes of a number of the principals themselves. We have the date, the whereabouts, and the human environment in which William Burns, the deputy secretary of state, first introduced the ground-breaking possibility that Washington would accept an Iranian enrichment capacity. The “zero enrichment” mantra, which had up to then prevented negotiations from taking flight, was relegated to history.

The Final Push

But this by itself was still not enough. A final element for diplomacy’s success was still missing: the presence on the Iranian side of personalities with the political will and inner strength necessary to fully reciprocate the American opening. This came with the end of Ahmadinejad’s mandate and the election in May 2013 of Hassan Rouhani to the presidency. And Rouhani chose for the task the best negotiator available in Iran, a seasoned professional diplomat, Mohammad Javad Zarif. With them in place, things could start moving.

This brings us to the gripping narrative of the momentous period that began with the unprecedented phone call between the two presidents on September 27, 2013 to the JCPOA’s successful conclusion on July 14, 2015—a period filled with ups and downs, sound and fury, advances and stalemate in which the parties had to negotiate not only between themselves but, even more difficult at times, with the people in their own respective camps who were trying to derail the budding deal. For the Iranians at least, this was a strictly Iranian affair. But the Americans had to confront not only numerous and powerful opponents in Washington, but the Israelis and Saudis as well. Nor was it always easy to maintain cohesion among Washington’s five partners, according to Parsi’s exclusive account.

But the reward came with the enthusiastic welcome given to Zarif by the crowd assembled at Tehran’s airport for his return from Vienna. As for Kerry, his emotion-filled concluding remarks following those of his P5+1 colleagues were memorably captured by Parsi toward the book’s end:

Kerry spoke last. He reflected on his youth as a soldier in Vietnam and later as one of the foremost advocates against the war. How he had learned that war was the ultimate failure of mankind and that his desire to spare the younger generation what he had to endure in Vietnam was a major motivator behind his drive to resolve the nuclear issue peacefully. “It was not a prepared statement, but it [was] a sentiment I had thought a lot about during the negotiations,” Kerry told me.

“I came back from Vietnam with the deeply held belief that we should never send our men and women in uniform into harm’s way unless we’ve exhausted every other option.” At the end of Kerry’s comments, half of the other ministers were teary-eyed. No one in the room doubted that they had avoided a war that would have left all of them, and all of their countries, worse off.

The story’s final twist, of course, addresses the epic battle over the pact’s fate in the US Congress. This battle witnessed the mobilization of both sides across the country, from the grassroots to the heart of the Washington elite. Netanyahu and his supporters were defeated by overconfidence in their own influence, especially among Democratic lawmakers, and by a wide-ranging coalition of arms-control, peace, human-rights, and religious groups, former high-ranking diplomatic, military, and intelligence officials, and regional specialists allied with a determined president who hammered home the message that the alternative to the JCPOA was most likely war.

Lessons of the Crisis

A last chapter takes the form of reflection on the decade-long history of the crisis, and also on the events to come. The conclusion strikes an optimistic note in spite of all the uncertainties presently looming over the JCPOA: “The norm in recent history has been that diplomacy settles a new peace after devastating carnage—not before. Instead, a global crisis was resolved peacefully through a genuine compromise in which all sides made politically costly concessions and the outcome doesn’t just resolve the immediate nuclear question, but also has the potential to transform the relationship between Iran, the United States, and the European Union.”

Parsi continues: “The Iran negotiations stand as a progressive counterpoint to the Iraq war: opponents of militant foreign policy can now not only criticize the errors of preventive military action, but also have a successful model for peacefully reconciling nations approaching the precipice of war.”

Losing an Enemy is a beautiful book, an important book for anyone who wants to penetrate the intricacies of Middle East diplomacy and diplomacy in general. Of course, further research on this outstanding case will follow. It will go deeper into the details of some aspects such as the failed negotiation of 2009-2010 for the provision of fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor, the positioning of Washington during the Iranian democratic upheaval after the 2009 elections, or the behavior of the European partners during the negotiations. But future researchers will have no choice but to build on the foundation provided by Parsi’s eminent book.

(published by the website Lobelog on July 6, 2017)

Around Laurent Fabius' visit to Tehran

interview with Shokoo Khodaie for Tehran Times (August 2, 2015)

What is the purpose of Mr. Fabius’ trip to Iran ?

 Obviously, the purpose was to start anew with the Iranian-French relationship which has been battered by the long and difficult nuclear crisis. Mr. Fabius has been very well received in Tehran and this shows that the Iranian governement is in the same state of mind. President Rouhani will go to Paris in November at the invitation of President Hollande and this will be also a very strong signal of willingness to build together again a warm and fruitful relationship. Do not forget that President Hollande was the first Western Head of State to meet President Rouhani after his election, in September 2013, on the occasion of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York. So, on the French side, the will is clearly there, and I am convinced that it is the same on Iran's side. 

What are the priorities for co-operation between the two countries ?

Most people will answer that the priority should be business, but I believe that the history of Iranian-French relations goes much beyond shere business. It is much richer than that. Business is of course important, it is a good way to build up confidence between people, but cultural and scientific cooperation, cooperation between Universities, cooperation for the protection of the environment, and of course political cooperation on all subjects of common interest are equally and perhaps  even more important. If I had the choice, I would probably choose the protection of environment as the absolute and most urgent priority.  

Apart from bilateral co-operation between the two countries, what were the most important issues discussed during this visit ? 

I believe that all the crises affecting at the present moment the Middle East, as in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon, as well as the fight against extremism and terrorism, have been part of the conversations of Mr.Fabius with Mr.Zarif and President Rouhani. These are subjects in which Iran and France may have differing views, but have certainly common interests!

Is there any rivalry between France and German to penetrate the Iranian markets? 

There is certainly no rivalry between Germany and France. There is, at least in some fields, the normal and healthsome competition  which should exist in an open market between companies which have an shared interest in the Iranian market. Sometimes French and Germans work together in the same company, as in Airbus. Sometimes, French companies have no German competitors, as in the oil and gaz industry, where there is no German equivalent of Total or Institut français du Petrole. Sometimes there is indeed a competition, as between Siemens and Alstom on the public transportation market. For the benefit of the Iranians, may the best win!

French automobile companies do not have a good track record during recent years in Iran. What are their projects and plans to make up for this ?

I beg to differ with this statement. If you ask the Iranian customers, I believe that they are satisfied with the  models constructed in Iran with the cooperation of Peugeot and Renault, and consider these cars as robust, pleasant to drive, and accessible to the middle class. If you ask the Iranian manufacturers, I believe that they consider their French partners as having greatly contributed to create with them a culture of quality, of reliability, of "zero defect", of respect for the Iranian customer. And I can confirm to you that the French automakers were also deeply satisfied with their cooperation with Iran Khodro and Saipa and have developed with their Iranian counterparts solid bonds of trust and friendship. Now, it is true that American pressure and sanctions have almost completely destroyed in a few years this beautiful common venture. But it is only a matter of common will to restore it. It could be put together again in no time.

The Minister, Mr. Laurent Fabius, has been criticized for his firm stance during the nuclear talks — many Iranians perceived him to be particularly harsh. What do you expect from the Iranian side about French positions?

I can understand how the Iranians were somewhat puzzled and angered by some of Mr.Fabius' statements during this long and difficult negotiation, but I can assure you that it was never in his intention to derail the talks. He had his own vision of a "robust" agreement, but after all, the Iranians also wanted a robust agreement! It was in nobody's interest to have a weak agreement, which could have been the source of new quarrels about its interpretation and implementation. Now that all the parties are satisfied with the result,  it is time to turn the page and start a new chapter. 

What did you recommend to Mr. Fabius for this mission ?

I did not meet Mr. Fabius personally before his visit, but I have had the opportunity to express my views in several media outlets. There are two points on which I believe that France could play a useful role in the region. First by helping to bring closer two key players in the Middle East, Iran of course and also Saudi Arabia, with which France has developed recently a good relationship. If these two countries could start working together on solutions for solving the Syrian, the Iraqi, the Yemeni crises, this would be more helpful than all the American interventions! I know it is not easy, but it is not a reason not to try. The second point is a bit technical. It concerns the pending ratification by three countries in the region of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which forbids any kind of nuclear explosion. The ratification of this Treaty creates no difficulty at all for Iran. It has already signed it in 1996, and has, of  course,  no intention  whatsoever  to build a bomb. But Iran, with some good reason, says that it will not ratify it if Israel does not ratify it. Egypt is in the same position. France has good relations with Iran, Egypt and Israel. If it could slowly by slowly convince these three countries to ratify simultanuously this treaty, it would be a first step in the direction of a Nuclear Free Middle East, which is in important goal for the Iranian diplomacy.

How do you see the future of relations between Iran and France ?

Of course, we have to accept that it will take some time to rebuild a fully trusting and close relationship, but in all fields of cooperation, if we put our strengths in common, the sky is the limit! 

Lights and Shadows of the Lausanne Agreement

                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                             April 5, 2015

The results obtained in Lausanne on April 2 in the negotiation between the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) and Iran represent an outstanding landmark in the long process initiated by the first contacts in 2012 between Iran and the United States under the aegis of the Sultan of Oman. This process was bolstered by the November 24, 2013 Joint Plan of Action establishing the method, the accompanying confidence-building measures, and the end goals of the negotiation of a comprehensive agreement on the Iranian nuclear program. Now, the Lausanne arrangements appear to have removed a significant number of stumbling blocks on the way to such an agreement, allowing us at long last to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Reached through exceptional efforts by the American and Iranian delegations, it can be hailed as a success of the U.S. team led by Secretary of State John Kerry, which displayed an extraordinary amount of perseverance, imagination, and initiative to circumvent Iranian resistance and finally win the day.

At the same time, an analyst owes the truth to its readers. Two documents seem to constitute the visible bulk of the Lausanne arrangements. First, a Joint Statement read successively to the press by EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif; second, a document issued almost simultaneously by the US State Department Press Office, and entitled “Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program.” The first one is rather short and drafted in general terms. The second is much more detailed, with precise figures, percentages, and time spans, such as the number of first-generation centrifuges allowed to spin over a period of 10 years, or the maximum stockpile of low enriched uranium (3.67% at most) allowed on Iranian soil over a period of 15 years.

Of the two documents, only the first can be considered as being formally agreed by all the parties. The second has been issued unilaterally, under the sole responsibility of the American side. We presume of course that American diplomacy behaves in a responsible way and, therefore, that the Iranian delegation has judged the numerous parameters listed in this document as at least acceptable. But this is the most that we can say. The first paragraph of this second document underlines that these key parameters have been “decided in Lausanne” but does not say by whom exactly. It reminds the reader that these parameters “form the foundation upon which the final text of the JCPOA will be written between now and June 30, and reflect the significant progress that has been made in discussions.” Needless to say, in diplomatic language, there is still a long way between “significant progress in discussions” and a real agreement. And the paragraph concludes with the now consecrated formula: “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” In other words, at this point in time, nothing is agreed.

As for the short Joint Statement, which reflects the common understanding of the parties, it speaks indeed of solutions reached on “key parameters,” thus alluding to the American document. But it does not say explicitly that all the delegations have agreed to these solutions. On the positive side, however, the Iranian authorities have not yet raised any formal protest following the publication of the “Parameters” document, which contrasts with what happened in November 2013 after the Americans had issued a similar document giving their own vision of the Joint Plan of Action just agreed upon. This time, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif tweeted that “The solutions are good for all, as they stand. There is no need to spin using ‘fact sheets’ so early on.” This can be read as a veiled critique of the “Parameters” document but not as an outright rejection. It should also be kept in mind that the Supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, publicly dismissed last February the idea of a two-stage deal, thus preventing the Iranian delegation from joining in Lausanne any kind of interim detailed agreement. All in all, these parameters can certainly be considered as a kind of resource bank for building the final agreement and a basis for discussion for all the parties. But obviously the road to the comprehensive, detailed agreement expected at the end of June will still be hard, bumpy, and full of booby traps.

At the present time, the indisputable bedrock on which the Parties are invited to build an agreement consists only of the formulas found in the Joint Statement:

• “Iran’s enrichment capacity, enrichment level and stockpile will be limited for specified durations… there will be no other enrichment facility than Natanz;”
• “Iran’s research and development on centrifuges will be carried out on a scope and schedule that has been mutually agreed;”
• “Fordow will be converted from an enrichment site into a nuclear, physics and technology centre…There will not be any fissile material at Fordow;” 
• “A modernized Heavy Water Research Reactor in Arak …will not produce weapons grade plutonium;”
• “A set of measures has been agreed… including implementation of the modified Code 3.1 and provisional application of the Additional Protocol;”
• The EU will terminate the implementation of all nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions and the US will cease the application of all nuclear-related secondary economic and financial sanctions, simultaneously with the IAEA-verified implementation by Iran of its key nuclear commitments;”
• “A new UN Security Council Resolution will endorse the JCPOA, terminate all previous nuclear-related resolutions and incorporate certain restrictive measures for a mutually agreed period of time.” 

This is already plenty, enough to characterize the Lausanne arrangement as a success, and to be optimistic about the final result.

One concluding remark. A silence looms large over the results of the Lausanne meetings. Why do we not find in any of the available documents or the flow of accompanying declarations produced in Lausanne at least a signal encouraging Iran to consider ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which forbids all kinds of nuclear explosions for military as well as civilian purposes? As we know, Iran was among the first countries to sign this treaty in 1996 but has not yet ratified it. Its ratification within the framework of the future Comprehensive Plan of Action would be an overwhelmingly positive indication for the international community and provide an added solemn guarantee about the peaceful intentions of Iran in the nuclear field. There is an explanation, of course, for this strange neglect. Two members of the P5+1 group, whose ratification of the Treaty would help it enter into force, still hold back on their own decision: China and the United States. This is how it goes with non-proliferation.

(as published on April 5, 2015 by the Lobelog website : http://www.lobelog.com/lights-and-shadows-of-the-lausanne-agreement/)

Iran Nuclear Deal: Uphill on the Homestretch? (LobeLog, May 5, 2014)

To date, negotiators on both sides of the talks over Iran’s controversial nuclear program, which resume next week, have been remarkably discreet. Even at the political level, people have been unusually quiet. This is an excellent omen. In the past, too many opportunities have been nipped in the bud due to an excess of statements calibrated for domestic purposes (a special mention to Wendy Sherman, the chief US negotiator, for saying so little, amiably, in many background meetings with the press). The involvement of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the negotiations has also been of inestimable value. The Agency offers unique expertise and notarizes regularly the way in which Iran complies with its commitments. It contributes therefore decisively to the smooth progression of the discussions.

Quite unexpectedly, Iran’s negotiators have been the driving force in this process. They have seized President Hassan Rouhani’s initiative to solve the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program and have kept it ever since, setting the targets as well as the tempo. Iran’s foreign minister and lead negotiator, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on April 7 that the drafting of the final agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) should start in May, and that all efforts should be taken to complete the negotiations by the official deadline of July. The Iranians seem set to resolve the conflict over their nuclear program as fast as possible, once and for all.

The Rouhani administration’s determination serves in pleasant contrast to the rather stiff and slow Iranian behavior that was especially exhibited during the Ahmadinejad era, but also, at times, in the most favorable of circumstances, during the 2003-05 period, when Rouhani was himself Iran’s chief negotiator. At that time, the Iranian diplomats on the frontline were subjected to a heavy-handed system of control, which tended to stifle their movements. Having learned from this experience, President Rouhani, elected last June, has obtained a carte blanche from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. While the Leader did issue a set of red lines last month (English diagram), and has issued specific warnings every now and then, he has consistently supported Iran’s diplomats while keeping domestic criticism of Iran’s team at a manageable level.

Indeed, Rouhani may not own the horse, but he controls the reins. One of his first acts as president was transferring Iran’s nuclear negotiating file from the Supreme National Security Council to the Ministry of Foreign affairs. That enabled him to build a “dream team” of seasoned negotiators, perfectly comfortable with the codes and practices of their Western counterparts. Iran’s new and refined team has stood out in stark contrast to the collective clumsiness of the P5+1 negotiators, as in the early November 2013 episode, when four Western Foreign Ministers rushed prematurely to Geneva, spurring the media to believe, mistakenly, that a deal would be signed (it was signed 10 days later). But, as Marshal Foch used to say: “After leading a coalition, I have much less admiration for Napoleon…”

Getting to the heart of the matter, many points seem close to being settled. Iran is ready to cap at 5% its production of enriched uranium and to limit its current stockpile from further enrichment. The controversial underground facility of Fordow will probably end up as a kind of research and development unit. The Arak reactor’s original configuration allowed the yearly production of about ten kilograms of plutonium, enough for one or two bombs. Ali Akbar Salehi, chairman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), has hinted that this configuration could be modified in order to accommodate low-enriched uranium fuel rather than natural uranium. This would reduce Arak’s plutonium production capacity by a factor of five to ten. And Iran has already confirmed that it has no intention of acquiring the fuel reprocessing capacity indispensable for isolating weapon-grade plutonium.

Depending on the pace of sanctions relief, Iran also seems ready to return to a kind of de factoimplementation of the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which would provide enhanced monitoring over all of Iran’s nuclear activities. Iran should be ready to initiate the Protocol’s ratification process as soon as the United Nations Security Council shows itself ready to remove the Iranian nuclear file from its agenda, thus erasing the burning humiliation of 2006, when it passed its first resolution on the subject.

The make or break issues

To date, five sticking points remain on the table.

The most difficult issue concerns the format of Iran’s enrichment capacity. The Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), adopted last November, speaks of “parameters consistent with practical needs, with agreed limits on scope and level of enrichment activities”. But the West has focused on “breakout time”, that is, the time needed to acquire enough highly enriched uranium for a first bomb if Iran decided to renege on its commitments. This delay has been estimated at about two months in the current state of Iran’s enrichment program. To extend it significantly, Iran would have to bring down the number of its centrifuges from the present 20,000 to 2-6,000.

A drastic reduction of the number of centrifuges, however, would be a deal-breaker for Iran. Following the conservative elements of the regime, the Supreme Leader has recently excluded any kind of bargaining on Iran’s nuclear achievements.

Fortunately, other solutions can alleviate the West’s concerns. First, having enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb does not mean having the bomb. Several more months would be necessary to make it ready. Second, one wonders why the international community would need more than one or two months to properly respond to an Iranian rush for a bomb. If it can’t make it in two months, why would it succeed in six? Third, this infamous breakout time could be extended without reducing the present number of centrifuges by using, as fast as possible, the low enriched uranium produced by Iran as fuel for nuclear reactors, rendering it unserviceable for further, weapon-grade, enrichment. Here, feeding the Arak reactor with domestic low-enriched uranium could solve a good part of the problem.

It is unfortunate, though, that the Iranians have made so little effort up to now to identify the “practical needs” mentioned, at their initiative, in the Geneva agreement. The spokesman of the AEOI has announced recently that a “comprehensive document” was being elaborated on the subject, and would be submitted for approval to the Iranian Parliament. But this process will probably extend beyond the time limit set for the negotiations.

In the meantime, we know that the Russians are bound to provide for eight more years the low enriched fuel necessary for the Bushehr nuclear plant. After this period, they will resist the introduction of Iranian fuel into the Bushehr reactor, as the selling of fuel is for the Russians the most profitable part of their contract with Iran. Their attitude will be the same when discussing the construction and operation of more reactors in Iran. By all means, new Russian reactors, or any reactors from other origins, will not be active before a decade. All of this is to say that if the current number of 20,000 centrifuges was accepted by the international community, the Iranians would have no “practical need” in the offing to justify a raise of this number in the years to come.

Another difficult point is the question of nuclear research and development. The West would like Iran to forsake such activities, especially in the field of centrifugation. Again, this is a red line for the Supreme Leader and the conservatives, as Iran’s engineers are working on models up to fifteen times more efficient than the present outdated model forming the bulk of its program. Here, a simple solution has been suggested by Salehi: instead of setting a cap on centrifuges, which could be circumvented by using more efficient models, the parties should define this cap in “separative work units”, the equivalent of horsepower in the field of enrichment. The introduction of more efficient centrifuges would thus reduce in due proportion the total number allowed.

A third difficult point is the ongoing exploration by the IAEA of the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program. This demand, reiterated by the IAEA Board of Governors and the UN Security Council, has been fiercely resisted by Iran. In fact, it was the head of the US national intelligence community who said, in 2007, that the Iranian weaponization program was stopped before completion by the end of 2003. Ten years have since passed, and the people involved in that program must have been granted some kind of protection in exchange for their compliance, hence the inherent difficulty for the Iranians of authorizing outsiders to probe too deep into this subject. In former similar occurrences, such as with Egypt, South Korea and Taiwan, the IAEA has accepted not to divulge details on the wrongdoings discovered by its inspectors, once assured of the cancelation of these programs. A similar way out should be explored with Iran.

The fourth sticking point evolves around Iran’s ballistic missiles. The West wants to include them in the negotiations, as a source of worry identified by the UN Security Council, but this has been outright rejected by Iran. Recall that Iran has accepted to negotiate over its nuclear program as a civilian program placed under the aegis of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Negotiations over missiles pertain to a different world, the world of defense and disarmament, in which negotiations are by definition collective, save for unilateral measures imposed upon a defeated country. If there is a solution here, it would require a separate, multilateral discussion on the level and distribution of ballistic missiles in the Middle East, with the aim of convincing concerned states to join the International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation, adopted in 2002 in the Hague.

The last point, little talked about, but hardly the least difficult, concerns the duration of the future comprehensive agreement to be signed by Iran and the P5+1. Under the Geneva JPOA, this agreement, once fully implemented for the duration of all its provisions, will be replaced by the common regime applicable to all NPT members. Iran would then be freed of specific commitments such as the limitation of its enrichment activities, on which extensive IAEA controls, of course, would remain. Such a shift would mean that the International community would be fully reassured about the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program.

However, to reach such an assessment, the general behavior of the Iranian regime and the quality of its relations with the outside world would be as important as the state of its nuclear program. How long should the assessment process last? These considerations cannot be put into writing. The Iranians will probably insist on no more than five years, while the West would be happy to see this regime of special constraints indefinitely extended. This point could be the last outstanding issue in the discussions. Hopefully, if solutions are found on all the previous questions, there will be a strong incentive to find a compromise here to ensure a final deal once and for all.